Eastward the Tots and Sots

Christian Adolf Volf has studied the human ear for 25 years. A balding, Danish-born inventor and onetime Sonotone engineer, he calls himself an acoustical physicist.

Lecturing at Los Angeles' John Tracy ear clinic (named for Spencer Tracy's deaf son), Volf propounded a revolutionary theory: physiologists have been all wrong in teaching that the ear's semicircular canals are responsible for man's equilibrium. Equilibrium, said Volf, is an acquired trait that man has to learn by becoming "attuned to rhythmic conformity with the rotation of the earth."

Volf had observed that deaf people without semicircular canals seem to have no difficulty in balancing themselves, that many had become outstanding dancers. But his most startling "evidence" was his observation of the way certain people walk. A child, said Volf, always takes his first toddling steps toward the east. Why? Because the earth's rotation in that direction makes it easier. Suggested Volf: "Just try to call a child who has begun to walk in the easterly direction. If you are west of the child, he will stop, sit down, turn around and crawl back on all fours."

The same, said Volf, holds true for drunks. He declared that he had found from careful observation that helpless drunks always walk east, fall down when they try to walk west. A drunk, Volf noted further, will resist entering a car or patrol wagon when it faces west but climb aboard willingly if it faces east. And he is much easier to lift to his feet if he faces east. Another useful tip: some drunks only fight facing eastward. Volf advice: "The fight may be avoided if the opponent will cause the intoxicant to face westward. This impels the intoxicant to fall backward."

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